Posted on 07/24/2014 9:31:10 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Earlier this year, Bush received some criticism from Republicans after he described illegal immigration as an “act of love.”
Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) took a tougher line on illegal immigration Thursday, writing in an op-ed that federal law should be changed so that people who illegally cross the border aren't released from custody as they await hearings.
Bush, who has expressed support for immigration reform and is considered a White House contender in 2016, said the existing law allows people who don't actually deserve asylum in the United States to too easily take cover under protections for real asylum seekers.
“We must close loopholes that allow for individuals to be released from federal custody between hearings," Bush wrote in the op-ed in The Wall Street Journal with Clint Bolick, director of the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation in Phoenix.
"Except for those deserving few who may demonstrate true cause for asylum or protection from sex trafficking, these children must be returned to their homes in Central America,” Bush wrote.
Border authorities are dealing with a flood of Central American children seeking to cross the border, and apparently believing they will be allowed to stay.
Congressional Republicans have called for changing a 2008 human trafficking law so that authorities could more quickly turn people back to their home countries. The administration also supports changing the law, but most Democrats in Congress oppose doing so.
Bush suggested few children would be deported if the U.S. government doesn’t change its laws.
“Despite President Obama's reassurances, few of these children are likely to return home if nothing changes,” Bush said.
Bush blamed both Obama and Congress for the border crisis. He argued the core problem is not new but has been exacerbated by a number of factors.
He also said the administration and Congress should work together to write a new immigration law to deal with underlying problems.
“President Obama has promised to once again act unilaterally if Congress fails to take up immigration reform. Now is the time for House Republicans to demonstrate leadership on this issue. Congress should not use the present crisis as an excuse to defer comprehensive immigration reform,” he said.
Earlier this year, Bush received some criticism from Republicans after he described illegal immigration as an “act of love.”
Jeb hasn't been paying attention.
Cruz warns House colleagues: Don’t let Democrats fool you - Alexander Bolton with Peter Schroeder, The Hill, July 23, 2014
"Sen. Ted Cruz is urging House Republicans to reject legislation addressing the border crisis, arguing that passing a bill through the lower chamber would play into the hands of Senate Democrats.
The Texas Republican’s move to sway GOP lawmakers will hamper any House effort to pass a border bill before Congress adjourns for its summer break at the end of next week.
In a Wednesday morning meeting, Cruz told a group of more than 20 House conservatives that they would regret passing legislation addressing the Texas border crisis because Senate Democrats were likely to gut it and use it as a vehicle to pass other immigration legislation.
He also touted his immigration bill that would defund Obama’s efforts to defer deportations of illegal immigrants who came to the country at a young age. That legislation, Cruz said, is the only answer to the border crisis. But the measure is strongly opposed by Democrats and some Republicans.
Cruz, who might run for president in 2016, has enormous influence with Tea Party members in the House.
Should he try to pass a border bill through the House soon, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his deputies will need every vote they can get. Some House Republicans have signaled they won’t vote for any supplemental spending border bill and most Democrats are expected to oppose it.
A House Republican working group on Wednesday released its recommendations for dealing with the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children at the southern border. It did not embrace the Cruz solution.
Heritage Action, a Tea Party group that has been critical of Boehner, indicated it will oppose such a plan because it lacks provisions that Cruz is seeking.
It remains unclear if Boehner will seek a vote next week though the chances of such a bill getting through the House look slim.
Republicans who huddled with Cruz agree with him.
“He can’t see any way we can initiate legislation in the House that won’t come back to bite us, that will actually end up with worse results,” said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.).
“He basically said he couldn’t see how us passing something is going to do anything but create a Trojan horse,” said Fleming. “He doesn’t trust [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-Nev.].
“He discussed how Harry Reid rarely even allows a bill to come up,” Fleming added. “When something is passed out of there, he fills up the amendment tree with a lot of stuff that blocks everybody else’s amendments so there’s no reason to expect Harry Reid to act any differently on this.”
Cruz said the House conservatives invited him to have breakfast with them to discuss the border crisis. The group meets regularly as members of the Conservative Opportunity Society, which was founded in 1983 and helped launch Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America.
The freshman senator said he did not push any strategic decisions on them, but did warn that passing legislation could boomerang on House Republicans.
“One can never predict with certainty what Harry Reid will do, but at least to date his approach has been to force meaningless show votes, to block out all amendments and to do nothing to actually pass substantive legislation that solves the underlying problem,” Cruz said.
Passing legislation through the House addressing the border crisis would likely prove fruitless, if not worse, he added.
“Harry Reid has decided that no substantive legislation will pass and instead we’ll spend the remainder of the year just having a series of show votes, all of which are designed to fail, but all of which he believes help Democrats politically in November,” he said.
Cruz spoke at the invitation of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an outspoken opponent of the Senate-passed immigration reform legislation and chairman of the Conservative Opportunity Society. King said it was the first time Cruz had spoken to the group.
King, who hasn’t ruled out a 2016 White House bid, warned that passing a border bill such as House GOP leaders are contemplating could give Reid and Senate Democrats a vehicle to pass pieces of the Senate immigration reform package.
“Among border-security Senate Republicans, they’re very well aware of what happens if you send something over to the Senate and Gang of Eight language gets attached to it,” he said. “Anything good we might send is either going to get Gang of Eight language or it’s simply not going to come up.
“No one has explained to me how anything we can do that fixes this problem could actually get through the Senate to the president’s desk,” he added. “Sen. Cruz and I are in substantial agreement.”
The Gang of Eight was a bipartisan group of four Democrats and four Republicans who authored the Senate immigration bill.
Cruz introduced legislation last week that would prevent the federal government from spending money on processing new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
He claimed Wednesday that the president’s lenient policy toward illegal immigrants who came to the country as children has caused the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America.
“The only way to solve this humanitarian crisis is to end President Obama’s amnesty because the direct cause of this crisis is President Obama’s lawlessness,” he said. “In 2012, President Obama unilaterally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people who entered this country illegally as children.”
Cruz last year played a pivotal role in a high-profile legislative battle when he and House conservatives insisted on adding language halting the implementation of ObamaCare to a stopgap government funding bill. The partisan showdown resulted in a 16-day government shutdown."
Aka amnesty. Which solves nothing.
Catch up with reality?
Just say no to another Bush. We have had enough.
Jeb Bush dequoted:
“READ MY LIPS. We must close loopholes that READ MY LIPS allow for individuals READ MY LIPS to be released from READ MY LIPS federal custody between READ MY LIPS hearings.”
Yeah....I’m gonna believe Mr. “I gotta Hispanic Wife Bush”
Here’s some advice to anybody named Bush. Go the hell away.
Stay out da Bushs.
This has happened before - and now we have ACA - Obamacare.
What a damned confused statement. Imagine how hard it would be to administrate.
So, if illegal immigration as an “act of love.” and therefore OK, does that mean since I “love” Jeb Bush’s big shiny car I can steal it.
The big problem in Bush’s plan is not necessarily that his ideas are bad individually, but that he wants a “comprehensive plan.”
I’m much more in favor of piecemeal plans addressing individual problem areas, because the overall situation is so skewed that there’s really no way to reform it.
A system that consistently lets in people with Muslim terrorist backgrounds (legally), keeps out people who want to work at jobs that are hard to fill with US citizens, lets non-citizen “families” bring in all their relatives (assuming they’re from certain special places, such as Africa or the ME), and permits total disorder at a physical border is not a system at all.
So start fresh by addressing each issue. “Comprehensive” never works, and it wouldn’t get by the Senate and Obama wouldn’t sign it anyway.
So now Jeb feels that illegal alien invasion isn’t an “act of love”? I’m confused.
“He also said the administration and Congress should work together to write a new immigration law to deal with underlying problems.”
Easier solution - find the will to seal off the border and stop the flow of illegal invaders. Then we won’t need to deal with any “underlying problems” because these folks won’t get in in the first place. It can be done. Our oligarchs just don’t want to do it.
For some reason I’m not really buying this “tough line on border” from Jeb. For one, it’s not tough at all. Secondly, it contradicts every single other thing he’s said on the subject.
Jeb is 2 little 2 late 4 me.
Still, if he wants to help, let him run a “general” campaign that inspires Hispanic-Americans to vote against Democrat schemesters in every close race...
FUJB
The ol’ flip-flop RINO routine. ‘I-was-for-it-before-I-was-against-it’, taking a page out of Vietnam Kerry’s book.
It is funny to see RINO’s flip-flopping like trout on the shore
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